Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

[Vonni]

I personally think that there will be no fixing of STR, I think it will just be removed. Just my opinion.

[jmicha]

^That's not going to happen. It isn't old, filled a gap in the water rides list in the park, and was a sizable investment. If anything it'll see work done to improve its reliability. It isn't going anywhere though.

[TopThrill182]

I, too, doubt the ride will be removed entirely. (But then again, with the ride being ordered under Kinzel, and Ouimet at the helm now, you never know.)

 

If anything, I think we might see some redesigned boats appear on the ride.

[jmicha]

^A lot of it honestly comes down to how it'll affect the company's relation with its shareholders. Despite an accident being bad publicity (obviously) it would be a big issue for shareholders to see the park just up and dismantle a ride and give up on it after a few seasons and one serious incident. It was an expensive ride and would come off as the park just throwing away its money which wouldn't be good in the eyes of its investors. Otherwise we would never have seen parks continuously attempt to save rides with issues such as SoB, the Windseekers, etc.

 

It's entirely possible though that the ride will receive new boats if they feel this will help make the ride a bigger and more reliable asset to the park.

[gerstlaueringvar]

Maybe they will add track under water? And use LSM as anti-roll backs?

[yay101]

Random, but what do you guys think of Cedar Point adding a pier onto Lake Erie since they are running out of room in their park?

[kidcoaster 2]

^ Never going to happen.

 

But there is still plenty of room for new additions all around the park.

[yay101]

^ Why do you say that?

[Koasterking48]

^ Never going to happen.

 

But there is still plenty of room for new additions all around the park.

Never say never. A pier for shops, food, and maybe some arcades wouldn't be such a bad idea considering Cedar Point is a resort. However building one for a roller coaster is more unlikely

[yay101]

IDK. It's just an idea I had. I was thinking like one coaster (maybe like Grona Lund's Twister or Santa Cruz Beach's Giant Dipper), or a ZacSpin (but that's unlikely now cuz of Intamin and Shoot-the-Rapids) but then mostly shops, food, and maybe carnival-esque flat rides. It was just an idea. *shrugs*

[AndrewRnR]

This exact subject was discussed just a few pages back. Cedar Point doesn't own past the "average water line" into the water. It would take going through a lot of red tape for something they could just as easily build on land. I remember these discussions on forums and Usenet groups back in the 90s - and yet the park always finds ways space to add things.

[_koppen]

I have been working 15 hours a day this week, and not really followed these accidents.

 

After reading through the info available on this accident, I can only imagine how embarrassed Intamin must feel.

An anti rollback not working in this day and age is just a plain and simple embarrassment.

[Astrojack]

Makes you wonder if the wheels didn't line up correctly with the track to cause the roll back.

[jray21]

I think it's pretty early to start saying anyone is to blame. If it's iintamin's fault then sure, they should be embarrassed, but until they officially release any information there no point to say any party is embarrassed. For all we know, CP could have modified parts of the system.

Edited July 22, 2013 by jray21

[805Andrew]

I was going to comment on the Shoot The Rapids first but that bird video caught my attention. I was almost laughing at how scared the employees were of removing that bird with tongs and gloves. What a bunch of wimps. It was funny someone in line said "be a man" and a guy finally removed that bird. Just the other day a bird was stuck in a corner of a building at work and I had to remove it, but it was a tiny one. And last year when I was driving home from LAX late at night a hawk dove in front of my SUV on the 101 near Arroyo Grande and got stuck on my car's deer guard. That was actually scary, as if I didn't swerve into the left lane, it may have hit my windshield. The next day I had to remove a beautiful hawk from the front of my car. The bird in the video looked like a sea gull, but a rather large one that probably snacked on a lot of Cedar Fair food.

 

Onto the Shoot the Rapids. First of all, I saw the POV of the ride and it looks lame except for the two drops - reaaaaalllly slooooooow moving in the flat parts and devoid of theming for the most part. Also I find it interesting that the big drop is first and the smaller drop is second. I've never seen that in a water ride before. Now on the accident, this was mechanical error meanwhile the NTAG accident was most likely a human error. That's scary that a ride that is only a few years old rolled down the lift hill and it tipped over to its side. The water doesn't look deep enough to drown anyone but luckily no one was injured too badly due to the shallowness of the water. Cedar Point is also lucky that this got overshadowed in the media due to the NTAG accident. Crazy week for amusement parks indeed.

[coasterfreaky]

Makes you wonder if the wheels didn't line up correctly with the track to cause the roll back.

 

that's what i was thinking. I've not examined the underside of the boats (i'd love to though!), but it looks to me like there is a "T" shaped bar on the lift and the descent that the boat holds on to. Divertical and Pilgrims Plunge (or whatever it's called now) have the same design. I guess something didn't align correctly where the "T" shaped bar begins, at the transition from the water trough to the lift. Seems like that might be fixed by making the space tighter so it will align correctly.

 

You can see the "T" shaped bar here in these construction pics...

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=864766#p864766 The 3/2/10 pic marked as "pretty"

 

and more here...

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=879837#p879837 The 6th pic down, the 17th pic down, and the 20th pic down shows the entrance to lift #1.

[jwil]

I was planning a CP trip in early August. I'm glad there were no serious injuries in the accident. I have not yet ridden STR and I guess I won't get to this year. I found it to be a strange inclusion as I feel it isn't all that different from Snake River Falls, correct? I'm in the camp where a park shouldn't add a ride just to add a ride. I know CP wanted to replace the old flume, but it seems like they could have installed something much more interesting for their money.

 

I also hope Skyhawk is fixed but that, too, seems unlikely given all the issues it has had this year. It is only 7 years old so I can't imagine them ditching the investment quite yet.

[mikeykaise]

I know STR and Giraffica are different with their lifts but that the boats are the same so I'm sure its just coincidental but Holiday World is saying now that Giraffica is going to be closed down indefinitely while the company that designed it comes in to work on the track some. Like I said probably not related but the timing makes you wonder?

[_koppen]

I think it's pretty early to start saying anyone is to blame. If it's iintamin's fault then sure, they should be embarrassed, but until they officially release any information there no point to say any party is embarrassed

 

It doesn't matter the reason, it is really embarrassing for them.

 

I'm a die hard Intamin fanboy, and I always think that the accident that happens on their rides are okay, because they could not be predicted or are due to human errors, but this I thing here with a failed anti-rollback is just not okay.

 

Feel free to flame me for this.

[SharkTums]

^No one is going to flame you, but you have to wait for the full story. Remember how everyone jumped on Intamin for the California Screamin accident which turned out to be all Disney because they changed something that Intamin did!?!? Or how about the SFKK accident where maintenance admitted they didn't follow Intamin's instructions for oiling the cable?

 

It's a hard position to sell a giant machine to a park and trust them to do everything right with it because or else the blame comes right back to you.

[_koppen]

Yes, I'm going to wait for the investigation before I say more.

 

But it looks extremely dark now, for a 100 year old safety mechanism to fail.

[coasterdude2011]

I love the Intamin rides at Cedar Point but I'm just so heavily disappointed in Shoot The Rapids. While I understand it fills as a replacement for White Water Landing back when it closed for Maverick but the ride has been a technical nightmare. It has gone so far incredibly over budget, and it's not even popular in the park at this point and most days I have been there as a regular goer it has shorter lines than Snake River Falls and Thunder Canyon. Not to mention that it takes up a huge amount of real estate in the park. I know it's not going anywhere, but after this accident I'm even more disappointed with the ride.

[Yamez]

^ I think you're making some rather large assumptions. There's no way we know what exactly the budget was for the ride in the first place, let alone if its over or under. The two days I spent at the park this year the lines were full for all three rides. In addition, when I worked Thunder Canyon it was rare to have a line on any of the water rides unless it was sweltering hot. People prefer to queue up for coasters and thrill rides over water rides during a normal day at the park.

 

Not dismissing your disappointment, I personally am not a fan of the ride either, but you should probably not make assumptions like that.

[eastcoast]

I think coasterdude has made a valid "assumption" about the budget for this ride. The price tag to begin with seemed high, and then they have had to make several modifications. Yes, maybe Intamin did them for free but with Cedar Fairs' soured relationship with the company at the time being I'm not so sure. Anyways, I like when people trash this ride...it sucks! My local park's ancient log flume is more entertaining than this overly long snooze-fest.

[ZeroGravity55]

I'm sure its just coincidental but Holiday World is saying now that Giraffica is going to be closed down indefinitely while the company that designed it comes in to work on the track some. Like I said probably not related but the timing makes you wonder?

 

HW closed Giraffica before Thursday, which is when they said something about it to one of their fans on their Facebook page. They said they closed it until Intamin could determine ways to improve the rides reliability. This makes sense, because the ride seems to be broken down more than it's running.